|
What does the community think of having thier local venture offcers generate Pregens to use for players that need them to fill out tables.
I for one would rather play a character made by my Venture Captain than any of the current Prgens made by Pazio. The Pazio Pregens are to bland and non optimized and at higher levels are a danager to the rest of the party.
|
What does the community think of having thier local venture offcers generate Pregens to use for players that need them to fill out tables.
I for one would rather play a character made by my Venture Captain than any of the current Prgens made by Pazio. The Pazio Pregens are to bland and non optimized and at higher levels are a danager to the rest of the party.
Not to insult our amazing venture officers, but not everyone that is a VO is a great character builder as well as an amazing leader. Of course some are but what if you get stuck with a VO that just doesn't want to build a bunch of pre-gens and another VO that makes 20 or 30 different pre-gens. It kind of makes it unfair when traveling to other regions.
Is the expectation that any VO's pre-gen can be played everywhere. If so then their would be a convuluted mess of a Character depot on the Paizo site where someone could go and download any ol' VO pre-gen and play it. For the paizo staff it would require hours to audit the VO's pre-gens they submit or just have to blindly trust that because they are VO's they are not susceptible to building a pre-gen that is just as inoperable as the current pre-gens.
I think if Paizo wanted to do something interesting and with community out reach they would use a contest of sorts to see who can build the new iconic stat block and allow for submissions.
|
I won't comment as to the feasibility of venture officers building pregens, but I want to comment on the existing PFS pregens.
The folks at Paizo are not dummies, quite the opposite. The current PFS pregens were built the way they were so that a new player could use them without a lot of complexity and so that players would want to create their own, even better, character as soon as possible.
Paizo doesn't want people to be using the pregens as their regular character (which would happen if they were moderately optimized). Paizo wants people to build their own character. This gets players more connected with the game - more involved with the game.
Pregens are meant to be a last resort to let a new player join in quickly or let a regular player play when they don't have a character in Tier. They are not meant to be the best option. In fact, they are only meant to be used, when they are the only option.
|
|
I won't comment as to the feasibility of venture officers building pregens, but I want to comment on the existing PFS pregens.
The folks at Paizo are not dummies, quite the opposite. The current PFS pregens were built the way they were so that a new player could use them without a lot of complexity and so that players would want to create their own, even better, character as soon as possible.
Paizo doesn't want people to be using the pregens as their regular character (which would happen if they were moderately optimized). Paizo wants people to build their own character. This gets players more connected with the game - more involved with the game.
Pregens are meant to be a last resort to let a new player join in quickly or let a regular player play when they don't have a character in Tier. They are not meant to be the best option. In fact, they are only meant to be used, when they are the only option.
I agree with you, maybe not completely but enough so that I can't dispute anything you said.
If I understand Lou Diamond's intent though, this question came about because the staff are pushing people to play pre-gens more often. The "only option" would be coming up more often and my experiences have showed me that people would rather walk away then play the current iconics. I understand the level ones are built that way, for ease of access and to be the "anyman" cleric/fighter/wizard. The level 4 and 7's though should be at least slightly optimized.
If someone's first time playing is using a level 7 pre-gen, which theoretically would require 18 play sessions, playing scenarios once a week and succeeding every week. We are looking at giving a new player a character sheet that should have taken closer to 4 and a half months to work towards all the while learning the system and rules, 18 weeks/ ~4 weeks in a month = 4.5 months.
That character shouldn't be easy to just jump into and play to equal expectations of another character who started 4.5 months ago with a level 1 pre-gen and worked their way up.
|
|
Why not make pre-gens part of Superstar 2014?
thanks,
Kodger
............. that's brilliant. The challenge will be to design a character that is both effective and easy to understand. It will demonstrate both system mastery and an understanding of clarity ... plus, proper formatting.
! That's awesome.
|
Because Superstar should be about something new, different, and awesome, and pre-gens don't cut either one of the three?Why not make pre-gens part of Superstar 2014?
thanks,
Kodger
Umm having pre gens that don't suck will be new (we NEVER had that before), different (because once again, NEVER BEFORE) and awesome...so not seeing the whole none of the above here....
Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
|
I'm with Don on this. The Pregens work well enough for what they are. "Everyone" seems to complain about them, but I actually like how most of them work. They might not be uber-optimized, but they are fairly well rounded and they're set up to handle the many challenges that Pathfinders of their level encounter.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
|
In re: Don and Eric, I would normally agree with you, but it was suggested in the other thread that players whose character would have to play down should play a pregen, even if they have an in-tier PC. I find this to be a terrible option, but if it's something we're encouraging, the pregens actually have to be good.
|
Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
|
Yeah, I find that a terrible idea too. If you have a character in tier, you should never be encouraged to play a pregen. I understand some of the reasoning, but the pregens are there for those that don't have a character that can play the scenario, they aren't there to be super characters everyone wants to play.
|
|
Pre-gens aren't intended to be power characters. In fact, that's kind of the point. Most of them work just fine. That said, I wouldn't mind seeing more choices - 2 handed specialized fighter, etc. Also, why aren't the 12th level iconics available for PFS? I'm sure there is a reason behind it, but... What if a local group only has 4 higher level characters, and one of them permanantly dies (or player moves away, etc.)